Chau-chan
by End Noesis
Summary: Akane returns to visit the cat she left behind many years ago.


**A/N:** I quickly typed this one out, because it's taking too much space in my head and I need to be entering data for my research project. Characters = property of CLAMP. This is based on Episode 15 of the anime, where Sakura captures The Float.

* * *

The girl stood on the porch, biting a lower lip glazed with a bubble-pop shade of gloss. The toe of her right boot tapped the welcome mat, which felt ironically rough and unwelcoming underneath her.

Above her, on the second-story of the house in a Tomoeda suburban neighborhood, a young female resident watched with a yellow stuffed animal in her arms. Its beady dark eyes were absorbed on the same stranger with increasing interest. Behind them two, a tall pale figure neared into the window to get a better view.

. O .

Yue leaned too far into his mistress, and she countered by pressing back into him with her weight to keep him purposely distant from the window. Kero climbed on her left shoulder, and pushed into Yue with all of his beastly force. It took the moon guardian all of seven seconds to notice his brother and mistress snickering at each other.

"I just wanted to see what's so interesting this morning," Yue said. He shifted out of the way quickly, causing Sakura to fall back. He caught her before any harm was done to both magical and significantly smaller individuals, who now eyed him with accusation.

"It's a girl!" Kero growled.

"I can see that."

"She looks too old to be selling cookies. But if she is, can you get me a box- no, _two _of the coconut ones? I'll need an advance on my allowance, too."

Sakura shook her head. "I already gave you an advance two days ago so you could pre-order your Fallout Duty 6 game."

"A loan then?"

She ignored him, a hand on her chin giving her an contemplative appearance. "We never get any new people in town, and if we do they bring trouble with them," Sakura said, counting out her fingers, "Six out of six times so far."

"Are you counting the Nothing? She's not a person," Kero said. "Statistically, anyhow, new strangers are positively correlated with a significant increase in troubles and headaches for our side."

"Correlation does not mean causation," Yue corrected.

"You can't deny the association. The data speaks for itself!"

"The n value is far too low to make your hypothesis valid."

A vein popped to the surface on the small guardian's head. "I hate you sometimes."

"Can we stop talking about math?" Sakura chimed. She placed her hands over her stomach, as if the influx of mathematical and statistical information could made her physically ill.

The soon guardian rubbed his own belly and muttered, "I'm _so_ hungry..."

Below on the porch, the strange visitor took a deep breath, adjusted her hair and rang the doorbell.

Kero's eyes widened with affected starvation and sugar-deprivation at his mistress. "All right, but only _one _box and you will have to share with me." His pout transformed into a toothy lion simper.

"Go, go, go!" He shoved her out of the room and led her down the stairs, where he went out of sight before she reached the front door.

Sakura adjusted the star key pendant in her necklace, her thumb brushing the polished pink ring and gold star for comfort. She had her two trusted guardians with her for back up, just in case. How much threat could a young girl pose?

Without further hesitation, she opened the door. The young stranger was already leaving, giving up on the house and making her way down the first step of the porch. "Excuse me?" Sakura asked, and the girl turned back to face her.

The young girl must have been about thirteen or fourteen as her true age, but looking at her anyone could have pegged her for about sixteen, as if she had grown up too soon. Her medium-length red hair was a penny-color as much as carmine, a shade of rust if it could shine. Her eyes were a bright brown, lovely but guarded. The pallor of her complexion reminded Sakura of Tomoyo's, giving her a doll-like appearance whereas it could pass as sickly-looking on most other girls. The old gray leather bag slung over her right shoulder looked rather ordinary, lacking any boxy contents with sweets inside. Sakura could almost hear a disappointed groan from Kero, as he watched intently close by to ascertain the visitor was non-threatening or cookie-selling.

The girl smiled as if recognizing an old friend. "Oh, so you're home? Good! I was wondering if I had traveled all this way for nothing."

"I'm sorry have we met before?" Sakura asked.

The girl bit her lip once again, planning her next phrase with painful care. _"Do you have a cat?"_

"Excuse me?"

A nervous titter from the stranger, as if she also caught the oddity of her question. "A small, yellow-orange cat. Big appetite, really sweet?"

_Kero?_ Sakura glanced behind her, catching sight of a partially obscured distinctively yellow-orange-colored head, whose body hid behind a vase filled with sunflowers of the same sunny shade. "I-I do actually, he's quite a shy one. Why do you ask?"

The visitor's eyes teared up. "God... thank God..." She came forward and hugged Sakura, holding her in an embrace so tight Sakura could only return it awkwardly, with a confused but comforting smile. When she let her go, the girl spoke again, "All these years they made me think he wasn't real, but I _knew."_

Something behind Sakura caught the visitor's attention, where her brown eyes followed. She turned as well to catch the full sight of Keroberos fluttering over the vase with the aid of angel-like wings and holding a sunflower in his paws. Some crumpled sunny petals spilled onto the newly-moped floor. "_Chau-chan_?"

"_Akane?" _He coughed, realizing his blunder too late. "Chau. _Chau?_"

"Kero!" Sakura snatched him from his mid-air position. "Ah, we were just having fun, hanging him from the rooftop on a string and putting on toy wings. A flying cat! Isn't that a funny sight? Sorry it was a poorly executed joke." She laughed uneasily, unable to come up with a more plausible explanation as to why her _cat_ was floating mysteriously in the living room.

"A flying cat who also talks?" The visitor giggled. "Yes, it's me Akane. Aren't you going to give me a hug? I've been missing you all these years."

"Chau!" He fought out from Sakura's grip and flew into her arms.

"You know each other?" Sakura asked.

Akane looked down at the peculiar little cat-like creature, who years before filled both of her hands with ease. "You're smaller than I remember."

Kero's plush-toy eyes scanned her head to toe. "You-you're so big now!"

"From anyone else, I would take that as an insult to my weight, but it's okay from you."

"You're not fat. You're smaller than Sakura, so that's a good thing."

"_Kero_..." his mistress grumbled through gritted teeth.

"It's true! The last time you rolled over in your sleep you almost killed me. In fact, had I not been a magical being, I could have actually died. It's a good thing your dad never let you have a real pet."

"You're as mean to me as Yue." Sakura's pouted lips turned to a smile towards Akane. "He's not serious. I keep him well-fed and even give him part of my allowance for helping me with chores."

Kero continued to hug his visitor. "It's the truth. If I slept with Akane she wouldn't kill me."

His mistress fumed. "Kero, can you please re-word that out of respect of our guest?"

Akane only laughed kindly, hugging the guardian a little more. "That's fine. Technically, I'm not your guest yet since I'm standing in the threshold."

"Oh, please come in!" Sakura rubbed her head embarrassed. "I'll make us some tea. Kero, come help!" He followed behind her to the kitchen, leaving their guest in the living room. "You have some explaining to do, STAT!" she hissed out of hearing range of their guest but with an explicitly threatening tone for her sun guardian to fully comprehend.

. O .

A silver tray was set on the coffee table, holding a mint-colored ceramic teapot filled with steaming green tea, three matching teacups and small plates with generous slices of lemon cake. Sakura's smaller assistant passed out forks, teaspoons, and napkins, before settling next to Sakura and across from his visitor.

"Kero tells me that you were the girl who took him in years ago when he got lost."

"Yes, do you remember me now?" Sakura nodded, smiling. "I meant to visit sooner, but my mother wouldn't let me travel this far alone until I was old enough. I didn't mean to make you think I didn't miss you or wasn't ever lonely again." Akane directed the last part to the smaller host, who watched her admiringly as he took large bites of pastel yellow-frosted cake into his mouth.

The guardian swallowed the spongy lemon confection and wiped his mouth of the excess frosting with the back of a clean paw. "It's okay, I forgive you." He licked a white spot of frosting clean off his paw absentmindedly, and at remembering his manners, padded the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

"Tell me everything about yourself, Chau-chan-I'm sorry, _Kero, _I want to learn more about you." Akane leaned forward from her seat to listen to him more closely_._ "I wonder what kind of a cute roommate you've been to Sakura. I only have a faint memory of one night you spent in my doll stroller."

His mistress stirred her tea in her lap. "'_Cute_'? Are we talking about the same cat? Did yours snore and talk in his sleep?"

Kero's face blushed to a deep orange. "Please don't embarrass me..."

"He was a perfect little gentleman, and so cute, too, I watched him sleep before going to bed and prayed that when I woke he was still there, and he was." Kero remembered the candy-striped blanket that covered him when he woke up that morning. It smelled of clean laundry and baby powder, nothing like what he had drunkenly fallen asleep on that previous night. He had asked a pink stranger for a place to sleep and was offered a cushion and an old smelly couch set out on the curb next to garbage cans. Akane had been the little child who plucked him from under the filthy cushion to give him temporary shelter, food, and a cold bath.

"You brought me a bowl of milk because you thought I was a cat, even though I had a pair of wings."

"With a funny little meow, but you drank it anyway. I was only four. I thought unicorns and Pegasus were just as real as…_you_."

Kero grinned and looked down as his small feet. He turned to his mistress. "Sakura, would you mind if we had some privacy?"

Sakura's teacup paused half-way to her lips. "_You... and Akane_?"

"Yes, please," Akane added. "I would like that, too. No offense to you, of course. You've been a wonderful host, Sakura. It's just that I only have a few hours before I had to head back and I'd like to spend them with Cha-_Kero_."

Both Kero and Sakura looked at each other, equally surprised at her response.

"Sure, I'll be upstairs." She began to gather her slice of cake and cup of tea.

Kero thought of his brother and mistress eavesdropping, as he himself had done countless time to the both of them and the other Kinomoto's who resided in the house. His ears perked up. "I have a better idea. Let's go to Penguin Park."

. O .

"I had questions that for the longest time were answered by therapists as 'vivid imagination,' 'created character with parental implications to make up for loss of father at early age,' 'false memories are more symbolic than rooted in reality' and so forth. I wanted to know what's real.

"For years after, I thought about you. When memories of my father made me sad, one of you dancing in front of the TV cheered me up. There were only two regrets I've had so far in life: not saying goodbye to my father when he was his sickest and letting you go.

"But then again you were never mine to keep. You were always Sakura's, right?" Kero nodded. "But if could've I wouldn't have wondered if you ever existed outside of my mind, wings and all..." Akane looked beyond, to the blue expanse overhead. "Did I ever fly back then, or did I dream about that part?"

"No." That day magic lifted the laundry Akane had washed along with her, and pulled them out of the open window to be sent over Tomoeda with the wind.

"Thought so. I wanted so badly to visit papa in heaven."

"You floated towards the clouds. I flew after you." Kero saw her eyes tearing up, seeing they were the same color of his favorite chocolates, the kind with the peanut butter filling.

"And then I fell and you caught me."

"I did have some help." Sakura and The Wood had to slow down their fall, because his strength alone in his false form was insufficient.

"I'll remember it my way as you saving me from my stupid wish."

"It wasn't stupid. The Float heard you and gave you a chance to visit your father, but neither knew that from where he watched you, you couldn't go to yet."

Akane wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. "I miss him so much. It's because of papa I'm gonna study to be a doctor, so I can help other little girls from losing their fathers so soon."

Kero began to do an old dance, shaking his bum and wriggling about. She laughed and swept him off his feet to plant a kiss on his head. He felt himself blush, and hoped she didn't notice. "If you had taken me with you, I would have taken care of you."

"I know, my cute little guardian angel."

Proudly, Kero lifted his chin in the air. "This isn't my real form, you know."

"Do you turn into something even cuter?" She pulled his ear.

"No, super cooler. I would even go as far as calling myself awesome." His eyes gleamed with excitement. "Would you like to see?"

"Yes, I would like to know the real Chau-chan."

"Okay, but don't get scared is still gonna be me only... You'll see."

She sat cross-legged, looking expectantly at him. "I trust you."

Keroberos's body glowed momentarily and transformed into his golden lion form. He stretched out his much longer limbs, each paw revealing dangerous and sharp claws. The silver armor over his chest and head reflected the fading light above, as did the garnets on his helmet and chest plate. Akane approached him without any fear, only a child-like curiosity he met years ago.

"You're so handsome. And look at these gorgeous – I mean _awesome_ wings." She walked around him, taking in all his mane-less lion-like appearance. He truly was an impressive specimen of magic and nature. "Kero, you are the most amazing creature I have ever known," Akane declared confidently.

Kero's eyes closed basking in the praise. Akane rubbed his now-pointed ears and the area under his chin, which elicited a deep feline purr from him. "Can I touch your wings? They look so soft."

He nodded and extended the wings. She touched them delicately in the area where they protruded from his back. At that, he maneuvered her onto his back with the wings. "Hold on!" Keroberos ran and took off into the sky, taking the girl with him.

"Where are we going?" she asked as the guardian settled into a comfortable glide well-above Penguin Park and steady enough for her to open her eyes.

"Where your father can see you better, so _smile_ for him."

She held onto the winged lion, looking to the fat fluff of clouds, and did as she was told.

. O .

Below them, Sakura and Yue observed from a thick branch that concealed them well. Sakura was uncharacteristically quiet, even her moon guardian resorted to starting conversations earlier that day. She was easy to read, but this evening she sent mixed signals, sighing sweetly and "awwing" one moment or fighting back the urge to cry the next. Kero was the better guardian to deal with bipolar-like emotional roller-coaster rises and falls, as he himself was in a perpetually teenage state of mind.

"Are you all right?" Yue asked.

"It's just so unbearably cute!"

"Oh."

"'_Oh_,' what?"

"I'd expect you'd be upset at how easily another girl could fill up Kero's heart."

She gave him a blank look. "You think he likes her more than me?"

"It's a different sort of 'like.'"

"What kind of different?"

"The kind that turn to love."

"So what you're saying is that you both don't love me and only like me." Her jade-green eyes became glassy with tears, expressing more than the moon guardian could fathom or withstand. "You probably only tolerate me."

"I do love-" She interrupted him with a quick peck on the cheek. "...you."

"I know. It's just fun getting you to admit it," Sakura said, returning to watch his brother fly in the sunsetting sky.

The moon guardian regained his poise. "That's cruel of you."

"I won't have to worry about some other visitor coming to claim you, do I?"

"Akane seems kind enough to take us both in."

His mistress shot him an unpleasant look, unquestionably streaked with jealousy. "You wish."

"No, I don't. Being with you is _tolerable_, and that's all I can ask for." The corners of his lips lifted slightly, enough for her to grasp the lightsomeness of it all.

. O .

Kero, in his resplendent lion form, sprawled on the grass on his side, while Akane rested her head on his prominently sized and fuzzy belly. They shared the sweet snacks and milk boxes Sakura had packed for their impromptu picnic.

"I knew I needed to find you, to know for certain if someone could be genuinely good as you were to me," Akane said, looking up at the sky which twinkled with the brightest of its stars and a slender crescent moon started to appear.

"I'm happy you found me."

"Me, too." She rolled over to see her lion friend. "You're very special. I think you were my first love, even before I even knew what it was."

"Akane…" Kero wanted to agree with her, to say what he had felt for her. An electric beeping sound joined along with the spurts of bird and cricket chirps of the park, now darkened by the beginning of night. Akane reached into her bag and shut off the alarm on her cellphone. "I have to catch my train back soon. I'll take you back to Sakura." She rubbed his chin. "It'll be harder this time around to let you go."

"Ok," was the meek sound Kero produced, letting himself enjoy her touch one last time. He returned to his false form and inserted himself into her open bag. His head stuck out of the top to maintain a clear view of his human companion all throughout the journey back home.

. O .

Back at the Kinomoto house, Kero and Akane sat on the stairs leading to the porch. He was sure they were watched by at least two pairs of eyes from within the residence.

Akame gave him a final hug, an extra long one that allowed him to savor her citrusy blossom fragrance. "Thank you, Kero, for everything today. Would it be okay if I saw you again?"

"Yes! I would love that." He cleared his voice. "Akane, can I write you letters?"

"Of course, I didn't think you'd—" She stopped and tilted her heart-shaped face. "Nevermind. You're just full of good surprises, aren't you?" Akane reached into her back to retrieve paper and pen. She scribbled her address and her phone number on it and offered it to the little guardian. "You can also call me."

Kero accepted it graciously. "Cool. Now I have two penpals!"

"Another girl?" Akame's copper-red eyebrows rose.

"No just some dumb cat. His name is Suppi and he doesn't like to write back."

"Oh, well, that's rude. I promise to reply to all of yours as soon as I get them, and I'll even send you little gifts with mine."

Kero's paws were behind on his back and he kicked the ground sheepishly. "Ok."

"Good bye, Kero. I'll miss you!" She blew him a kiss. Its imaginary impact made his head reel enough to sit down.

"Bye, Akane!" he called out and waved, before she disappeared around a corner.

The little girl was out of his life for a second time, and she was right, the second time it was harder.

"It would never work." The cruelty of the statement meant it belonged to none other than his brother, who as expected, snaked his way outside to mock him. Kero could only mentally curse his openness this day, as likely more torture awaited him upstairs, where his mistress watched wide-eyed and pleased. Her gushing over his date would be as bad as or worse than Yue's analyzing the intricacies of human relationships until their mystique dissolved into harsh realities.

"How would you know anything about love?" he challenged his brother, whose heart was frosty and prickly like icepicks.

"I was bluffing but now I'm certain you're smitten with the girl."

Kero turned a true red while the moon guardian laughed softly for once at his brother's expense.

.O.

Five years later…

_A doorbell rang, and the girl set aside the thick science textbooks. The doorbell rang again and again, as her inpatient visitor tapped the button a second and third time more. She looked into the peephole, only making out an unrecognizable head of blond hair. The stranger faced his feet, looking down at the paws imprinted on her welcome mat. A tanned arm reached to try the doorbell again._

_She opened the door._

_"Akane?" His arm retreated to his side, and the girl saw there was a thin red ribbon tied to his wrist. The stranger looked up at her slowly, taking her entire body into his gold-colored eyes. It made her cringe when young men at her university looked at her like that. However, this boy did not seem to secretly devour her with lecherous thoughts. He had a lion-like smile that adorned a tanned face, a face framed by short waves of blond locks. "I thought I had the address wrong, but I couldn't have 'cause I memorized it from all the letters."_

_"Kero?" Akane asked, and he flashed a characteristic smile only belonging to an old friend._

_The humanized Keroberos stepped closer, in steps that could have belonged to someone nineteen years of age, an enchanted lion over hundreds of years old, or someone who took their first set of steps as a human being in this world. "Your letters and phone calls weren't enough anymore."_

_"How did you…" She went into his arms before even finishing the sentence._

_"One night, I made a wish on a piece of paper that I threw away, or thought I did, but it fell underneath the bed. A green-eyed monster found and read it. Instead of making me clean the house, she granted my wish."_

_"You wished to be human, Kero, for me? I liked you just as much as your real and other forms."_

_His arms fit around her completely, effortlessly. The boy and she were two congruent pieces of the same puzzle, finally joined together perfectly. "I know. That's why I wished to be with the one I loved." _

_When their emotions had settled, they were able to sit down and enjoy each other's company as they had years ago. Kero explained how Sakura managed to create a second false form for him, one that would allow him to visit his dear friend and live out a life without any limitations. _

_Akane listened attentively, and only interrupted once, to touch his face, to sense the realness of him. "You're the most amazing creature I have ever known." Kero's expression went red and he tried to cover his face to no avail, meeting her hands instead. "So he blushes…"_

_Before following with a pride-sparing defense as he had many times with his mistress and brother, the girl's lips touched his, and they shared the first kiss in their young human lives. _

.O.

The daydreams grew lengthy and incapacitating during critical levels of his latest edition of Fallout Duty game. Even his mistress commented on how his skills had diminished, and placed a concerned hand on his forehead to check his temperature, before being shooed away by the little sun guardian. Irked, she had retrieved the Fly and produced her star staff. The moon guardian quietly read one of her textbooks by the window and only gave her a passing glance as she huffed out into the chilly, starry blue, barefoot and wearing only a thin pajama set.

Yue flipped a page and addressed his brother, "She only means well, and you are acting rather unusual."

"Not like you did anything to stop her from leaving in the middle of the night." Kero's paws clicked repeatedly on his controller's buttons, leaving him with another defeat on the flickering and flashing screen.

"The mistress is just as hotheaded as you. She'll come back when she cools off."

Minutes passed by before Kero placed down the controller, hot by continuous use that night. His mistress and brother were right, something was bothering him and it was interfering with not only his gaming, but also how he perceived himself. "Yue?"

"Yes?"

The small yellow figure gulped and sweatdropped at the thought of expressing his deepest concerns. It was unlike him to share so openly to Yue, someone who was as cold and tough as an iceberg in the Antarctic Ocean, but he was his brother, and brothers were supposed to help each other, right? "Do you think you could ever love a human… or could a human love you back?"

An iceberg shifted its attention from the worn history book in its pale grasp, and focused on the sun guardian with a power that could bring him down like an unfortunate ship. "Why do you ask me such personal questions?"

"I'm not asking if anyone loves you!"

Yue sighed deeply. "Sakura loves you and I, but I know that's not what you meant. We were created by a very powerful sorcerer who loved us even before we were born into this world. Master Reed made us to feel and live as fully as much as humans. Therefore, why should we not be susceptible to love?"

"But can, we... _I,_ be loved in the same way in return?"

The moon guardian smirked, at determining the source of Kero's inquisitiveness towards something beyond the tangible or edible. "Akane loves you."

"But how could she see me more than an old pet? It's easy for you. Master Reed gave you a human form. Nobody ever saw you as a mere cat." Had he a false form or a true form that was human, could his problems be solved? He did not want the complexity of the dichotomy in which Yue and Yukito existed as, but he could not deny the convenience of being of the same species or looking as close to one as possible.

"Likewise, the same goes for you. Perhaps a stuffed animal, yes, at first, but never has anyone seen you as any less than I. Would you think that I, as your brother, would ever permit such a thing?"

"No, I guess not." Tomoyo and Sakura were his two other closest friends, and always treated him as an equal. His small form in the presence of such doting females worked in his favor as his cutest faces granted him extra servings of sweets or other provisions.

"Keroberos, as your brother I advise you to let your feelings out into the open, and not necessarily to me. Time works differently for humans than us as you know. She may not wait forever, not because she is not willing, but because she does not have that privilege."

"What if she-"

Yue interrupted with a final piece of advice, more or less a demand, delivered with the last of his patience, "You are the Beast of the Seal, so act like one." Pulling the glass pane upwards, the moon guardian stretched out his wings and climbed the windowsill.

"Where are you going?"

"To retrieve the mistress, by reasoning or force." With that, the sun guardian received the answer to his initial question. He fluttered over to the desk and began to pen the most important letter of his life, not addressed to a grumpy sun guardian in England, but to a special human.

_Dear Akane..._


End file.
